Nature-ral High

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail

July 11, 2015

Climbing Xueshan (Snow Mountain) in Taiwan : Side Trips

Sulit - a filipino term for make the most of something, or take advantage of the opputunity.
During my hike to Snow Mountain in Taiwan, I am guilty of doing this Filipino trait. I made 'sulit' of my trip in this country. Or in Mountaineering, this is what we call "side trip". I arrived on the early morning of Friday of that climb weekend. After sleeping a few hours in my Hostel and relaxing a bit, I did a tour around Taipei. First stop was at Elephant mountain. A hill that has a good view of Taipei and Taipe 101. There are many trails that will get you to the top, all of them are stairs. Mind you that many Taiwanese are health buff people. Kids and Grand parents go to this area to stay fit. There is even a small calistenics area on top for citizens who wants to exercise after hiking. I even saw a Granddad doing bars pull-ups whos physique is better than mine.

Typical Taipei side walk with all the food shops

Entrance to Elephant Mountain

All walks of life and ages doing the hike

500 steps, just a few more!

Since Taipei 101 was just a train station away from Elephant mountain, I dropped by before going back to my hostel. Pretty amazing seeing the second highest tower in the world (next to Burj Khalifa). Taipei has good transportation system that I was still able to arrive on time on our meeting place at 7PM.

Taipei Main Train station

Entrance to the 2nd tallest building in the world

Shaped like a bamboo

Structures around Taipei 101

After the climb, we returned to Taipei at around 8PM Sunday. So again to make sulit of my time I visited the popular Shilin night market. Pretty much like Manilas Divisoria, but much cleaner and there are lots of food stalls. The next day (Monday) before taking my flight back home I took time to visit another popular tourist spot, Chiang Kai Sheik Memorial. Nice place and very clean. The main entrance to the hall was close for renovation so I did not know that there were another entrance. haha. So I missed seeing Chiangs gigantic statue.

Shilin night market

Breakfast

Typical Chinese Meal

Entrance Pillars

Chiang Kai Shek Memorial

CKS Memorial Hall

The Taiwanese are good urban planners, the Hall is integrated to the MRT. This is the entrance and you won't even notice this.

I went to Taiwan for a climb weekend and I was still able to manage to visit four tourist spots. Talk about Sulit!
related : Snow Mountain Climb